mask of Satan.”
“Not at all, my good Domenico,” said Macchiavelli, smiling, and laying his hand on the elder’s shoulder. “Satan was a blunderer, an introducer of novita , who made a stupendous failure. If he had succeeded, we should all have been worshipping him, and his portrait would have been more flattered.”
“Well, well,” said Cennini, “I say not thy doctrine is not too clever for Satan: I only say it is wicked enough for him.”
“I tell you,” said Macchiavelli, “my doctrine is the doctrine of all men who seek an end a little farther off than their own noses. Ask our Frate, our prophet, how his universal renovation is to be brought about: he will tell you, first, by getting a free and pure government; and since it appears that this cannot be done by making all Florentines love each other, it must be done by cutting off every head that happens to be obstinately in the way. Only if a man incurs odium by sanctioning a severity that is not thorough enough to be final, he commits a blunder. And something like that blunder, I suspect, the Frate has committed. It was an occasion on which he might have won some lustre by exerting himself to maintain the Appeal; instead of that, he has lost lustre, and has gained no strength.”
Before anyone else could speak, there came the expected announcement that the prisoners were about to leave the council-chamber; and the majority of those who were present hurried towards the door, intent on securing the freest passage to the Bargello in the rear of the prisoners’ guard; for the scene of the execution was one that drew alike those who were moved by the deepest passions and those who were moved by the coldest curiosity.
Tito was one of those who remained behind. He had a native repugnance to sights of death and pain, and five days ago whenever he had thought of this execution as a possibility he had hoped that it would